Points - what are they

Ok, so I know what they are and what they do, but what are they actually made of? That little white mysterious substance is interesting.

Tungsten is often used. As is Silver/cadmium alloy. I think some imported sets are made from used Buicks. Jim

I thought maybe they were made from annealed chewing gum wrappers, in some cases.
Zach

What white mysterious substance?

You know, that stuff that we have to take dollar bills and buff out.

Tungsten oxide, can be harder than carburundum.

Gene

That is what I was thinking, white stuff = bad

Whatever it is nowadays, seems like they dont last as long as they used to grrrrrrrrrrrr Most will build up an oxide coat afetr a while, Ive seen some of it a gray color other is lighter, guess it depends on the material......

John T

Bingo.

Quality contact sets are still available from Standard Ignition (Blue Streak) and Echlin.

The run of the mill Chinese/Mexican made sets are hardly worth installing.

Dean

I remember when GM came out with the "Unipoints" that combined points and condensor in one piece using only two screws, not separate points and condensor using three screws. I made the mistake of accepting a new "Unipoints", put them in and was bad capacitor fresh from the box, so took them back and they didn't have another, and gave me my money back. Then went to another place and they had the separate points and condensor. Perfect, until I got home. Misplaced the third screw when I put in the failed Unipoint set. Ohhh noooo. Aftermarket electronic ignition by Mallory and Accel were out by then and seemed like a suitable upgrade, so...

Mark

Same as that white stuff on top of a pile of chicken mess.

LOL, Good one Jim!

A dollar wont do much , If you want to clean them up much you should use atleast a 10 dollar bill , a 20 will work even better !

Good topic. Eventually those of use that use them will have to make their own.

(quoted from post at 20:14:19 04/15/13) Bingo.

Quality contact sets are still available from Standard Ignition (Blue Streak) and Echlin.

The run of the mill Chinese/Mexican made sets are hardly worth installing.

Dean

Click to expand...

Ditto & ditto. The price sure jumped though!

Platinum plating used to be used on some higher end commercial use points until metal price jumped for use in catalytic convertors. Old unisets kind of bad deal early 70s when GM distributors were made for the unisets only- legal challenge regarding other suppliers making them infringed on GM patent, price discrimination for aftermarket, minor dealership price break issues meant nobody else really made them and the OEM distributors couldn"t use the early seperate sets without a rebuild. Them GM discontinued production. Some vehicleowners- especcially commercial owners- then bought 10,12 or 24 sets for their own future use. The solid state triggers were replacing mechanical points by late 1970s and later on the replacement of the points distributor in GM V8s with a later 1970s electronic distributor was common-I did it in 1971 Chev C20- but the industrial engines with the old unisets were still around and cheap replacement wasn"t available until the aftermarket electronic kits using the current, patent expired components became available. Still find some old engines out there with a uniset in tight space - it was a good service deal in that regard, install, sight check gap then connect dwell meter and set to specs as engine ran. RN

"GOOD" contact points should be made of tungsten
North Korea, is a major supplier of tungsten,but
probably not for export to United States. It's probably one of the few commodities they have to
export.

Well I tried to answer this thread but it got rejected and no body told me why. I scanned it and didn't see a thing wrong with it other that possibly a word I used, addressing a human posteria as a "xxxx".

Ok this post was also rejected because I used the word, without the x's: txwxaxt. Geez what is this world coming to. Maybe I need to go elsewhere.

Mark